


Lingering Memories

by Jammy_Jams



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Christmas, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5350757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jammy_Jams/pseuds/Jammy_Jams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even though Frisk had completed a pacifist-run on their first try, they still had to live with the memories of nearly every monster in the Underground trying to kill them. And sometimes, they just couldn’t cope.<br/>-or-<br/>Frisk has nightmares of their best friends trying to kill them on Christmas Eve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lingering Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place less than a year after the barrier was broken. The monsters live relatively peacefully among the humans, and have general knowledge of the resets.

You had always been small for your age; your parents would often punish you for bad behavior by locking you in your room without food, sometimes for days. You were bad a lot, always forgetting that children were meant to be seen, not heard, and sometimes not seen at all. You think it stunted your growth.

 

So when you fell into the Underground you weren’t nearly strong or fast enough to dodge every attack or projectile aimed at you. The pie that Toriel gave you was the most food you had eaten in almost two days, and you weren’t used to dodging attacks. Dodging usually just made your parents angrier.

 

Still, you made your way through the Underground, determined not to hurt anyone. Toriel was kind, and made you ache for something you couldn’t even name, and you knew the other monsters in this world had the same potential if you could just be brave enough to show mercy.

 

So you died. A lot. It only took a few Froggits to take you down for the first time in the Ruins, and you were so, so scared. Finding yourself floating in blackness was deeply unsettling, and it gave you time to think about the more gruesome aspects of your recent demise. Figuring out how to SAVE and LOAD made battles less terrifying, but the pain of feeling your soul burst filled you with dread each time.

 

The monster food was helpful, it was filled with magic and healed back to your full potential, but it couldn’t change the fact that you simply weren’t built for fighting. You tired easily, could count your ribs through your shirt, weren’t used to exerting your muscles, and had terrible eyesight. You stopped counting your LOADs after they reached the hundreds, every monster you met jumped to attack you before you could utter a word.

 

Monster attacks. Fail to dodge fast enough. Take damage. Feel blood draining as it dripped/flowed/gushed onto the snow/rocks/plants. Plead/reason/comfort. Clumsily try to move out the way of more attacks. Fail. Die. Reload. Dodge faster. Not fast enough. Bones breaking/skin blistering/flesh tearing. Die. Reload.

 

It felt like months before you actually managed to free the monsters from the Underground.

 

Living on the surface with your new family, you did your best to forget the bloody memories of your first meetings with many of the monsters, but they seemed to resurface anyway. You did your best to hide your shaking hands and frantic breathing, pretending the nightmares were about something else, your old life, until the most horrifying one yet happened at the worst possible moment.

 

* * *

 

 

It was decided that everyone in your monster family would spend Christmas Eve at your house, and you were excited. Your first real Christmas! With presents, and food, and music, surrounded by the people who loved you the most.

 

Undyne hung strings of Christmas lights off the roof, wobbling on the very top of the ladder while laughing maniacally. In between worried glances at her girlfriend, Alphys programmed the lights to twinkle on time with the music provided by Mettaton (his own MTT brand, of course). Asgore chose a tree taller than he was, and walked home with it slung over one broad shoulder to the amazement of every human that saw. He decorated it with carefully selected ornaments, some of them handmade by the students and Toriel’s school. Papyrus loudly and excitedly ran around the house hanging large red bows on anything that could hold them, including a bemused Asgore’s horns. Sans and Toriel baked pies in the kitchen, er, Sans watched while Toriel baked pies and made a feast fit for a small army.

 

And if no one saw you flinch when Undyne jumped off the ladder with a hard thud, or when Mettaton sharply struck a familiar pose, or when Asgore swung the tree off his shoulder in an unconscious display of power, or when Papyrus summoned bones out of the walls to hang more bows off of, or when Toriel used fire magic to cook the food, then it was all for the better.

 

After a full day of sledding, building snow men, singing Christmas carols, and demolishing an astounding amount of food, it was time for bed. Papyrus was adamant about going to sleep at a decent hour for fear that Santa wouldn’t come down the chimney if anyone was awake.

 

All the furniture in the living room was pushed to the edges of the room to make space for a mountain of blankets and pillows. Everyone changed into their festive pajamas; Papyrus looked strange in a red sweater with a plate of spaghetti stitched on, and no boxing gloves. Undyne had on a matching set of candy cane-striped pants and shirt, but she had ripped the arms off the shirt to show off her muscles. Alphys wore her new Mew Mew Kissy Cutie Holiday Special Edition Pajama PackTM, and Mettaton plugged his charging station into the wall. Asgore often had difficulties in finding clothes his size, so he had on a plain green tracksuit. Toriel walked in wearing a nightgown with a tiny mistletoe pattern printed all over it, and Sans couldn’t help but stare for a few moments and accidentally caught her eye.

 

Sans (who hadn’t even bothered to change into pajamas at all) ducked his head as a faint blush spread across his cheeks. You crawled over to him to poke at his face and giggle, but he quickly got revenge by tucking your arms by your sides and wrapping you into a burrito, laughing as you squirmed on the floor and managed to sit up only to fall on your face. He reached over to where you were struggling to roll over and dragged you into his lap, delighted at how much heavier you were now.

 

Papyrus looked over and saw you sitting on Sans bony legs, and quickly snatched you into his arms, ignoring San’s outraged “hey!” and declared that, “NOTHING COULD EVER BE AS GOOD AS MASTER CHEF PAPYRUS’ SPAGHETTI, BUT A FRISK BURRITO IS A CLOSE SECOND!”

 

From there it was a game of “hot burrito” where everyone took turns stealing you out of each other’s laps while you giggled uncontrollably. But after Undyne attempted to stick you on the top of the Christmas tree its new star, Toriel decided it was bedtime for everyone.

 

Snuggled up in a pile of monsters, surrounded by soft blankets and not-so-soft snoring, you let yourself drift off into sleep…

 

* * *

 

 

You found yourself lying on a bed of golden flowers, and the acrid taste of bile immediately rose up in your throat. You jumped up, and looked around, a cold feeling of dread weighing in your chest. There was nothing but blackness around you, endless and unnerving, and you kept searching the darkness with your eyes trying to see anything at all, but it was too dark beyond the small circle of sunlight that surrounded the patch of flowers. Suddenly, you heard an odd, shuffling, scraping noise behind you, and you whipped around to face…

 

Asriel? No, it wasn’t him, at least not entirely. He was stumbling toward you, dragging along thorny vines that bit into his legs and extended out into the pitch black. The vines wrapped around his torso and arms as he reached toward you, dust flaking off wherever the thorns punctured his flesh; entire chunks were missing in places where the thorns dug in more forcefully. Green tendrils ensnared his throat and grew out of his hollow eye sockets, writhing as they searched for something else to trap.

 

All at once the vines constricted, crushing Asriel and forcing him to his knees. He screamed, “It should have been you! I should be the one on the surface with my family, not you! You stole them from me! I’m still trapped here! Give them back! Give them bac-!” He burst into a cloud of dust, voice echoing in the darkness for a few moments before a mass of thick vines erupted from the ground and Omega Flowey exploded from the fissures. You couldn’t move, you couldn’t breathe as his high pitched, shrieking laughter echoed around you, right before he plunged dozens of vines into your chest, legs, and arms and ripped you apart.

 

Suddenly you were in front of Toriel; she was blocking the exit to the ruins and fire was burning in the palms of her hands. “Fight me or leave!” She commanded, but there was only a solid wall behind you and nowhere to run. You tried pleading with her, but she didn’t seem to hear a word you said and shot her magic at you instead. She attacked you again and again, fire singing your clothes and scorching your skin, leaving ugly red blisters in its wake. You felt as though you were running through mud, unable to dodge and shielding your face with your arms. You watched, horrified, as the flesh charred off of your bones and you could feel your face melting. She looked at you blankly as you dropped to your knees, and you tried one last time to call out “Mom-” before she blasted you with one final attack.

 

When you opened your eyes you were still on your knees, but now surrounded by snow. Looking up, you saw the cheerful face of Papyrus looking down at you. Relieved, you tried to stand up, only to realize your heart was blue and a lot heavier than usual. Stumbling, you called out to Papyrus for help, but the wind was blowing so fiercely he couldn’t hear you. It was cold, so cold you could see the tips of your fingers turning blue through the blinding snow. Papyrus just kept smiling as he swung one of his arms upward and a volley of bones erupted from the ground. You jumped to the side, but one of his bones shot through your arm, shattering it like a block of ice.

 

You screamed, but more bones kept erupting as he laughed, chipping off more of your limbs each time you tried to dodge. Eventually there were only jagged, icy stumps protruding from your torso, preventing you from getting up off the ground. Papyrus smiled down at you, turned, and started walking away, ignoring your calls for him to stop, please don’t leave you there. You remembered; he would hurt you, slam you with painful attacks until you fell unconscious but he would never finish you off. You coughed as the freezing snow piled over you until you couldn’t see anymore.

 

Water rushed around you, dragging you with the current and pulling you down until you realized you couldn’t breathe and desperately swam upward. You burst through the surface of the water, only to feel and clawed hand grip the back of your shirt and throw to across the room to slam into a damp, rough wall. Breathing heavily, you looked up from the floor to see Undyne in full battle armor glaring at you from across the garbage dump. “Stand and fight, you coward,” she spat as a glowing spear materialized in her hand. You scrambled to your feet as a spear flew by your face, leaving a gash across your cheek and imbedding itself into the wall behind you. Blood leaked from your wound and dripped into the ankle-deep water beneath you, the sound echoing. The spears flew at you faster and faster, while Undyne screamed obscenities about how you didn’t deserve to live while everyone suffered, until you failed to dodge fast enough and a spear pinned you to the wall through your left thigh.

 

Your leg gushed blood around the shaft of the spear, and you watched helplessly as more spears came to pin you through your right shoulder, right knee, left forearm, stomach, right arm, left hand, left shin, each one punctuated by another spurt of blood. She stalked up to you while you shivered and pulled uselessly at the spears, and leveled another glowing spear at your left eye. “For Asgore,” she said, as she plunged the spear in hard enough that you heard the back of your skull shatter before everything went black.

 

The silence was deafening; you couldn’t see anything but you knew you weren’t alone in this darkness. You felt yourself being watched, and as you turned in a circle you noticed a glowing red dot appear in the distance. Then another, then another, and soon you were surrounded by red dots that glowed around you in a wide sphere. All at once, the red dots turned green, deafening music was being played from all sides, and blinding rays of light shot down from the ceiling. You were surrounded by television screens, all with Alphys’ face on them, as Mettaton appeared in a suffocating cloud of smoke right in front of you. “Showtime Darling!” he trilled as one of his knees came flying upward to nail you in the stomach, sending you flying back a few feet. You coughed up blood as you stood up, trying to back away as from him as far as possible but the sphere of cameras moved with you and so did he.

 

He struck at your chest with his metal fist, and when you tried to block it you could feel and see the bone in your forearm splinter. White shards of bone stuck out at the break, distracting you in nauseated horror as he swung with his other fist and crushed your other arm. Red trickled out of the compound fractures as you did your best to run from Mettaton’s other attacks, but he was too fast and kept breaking you. Your ribs shattered and collapsed inward, your leg crumpled as he dislocated your knee with a swift kick, your spine snapped and left you defenseless on the floor with Mettaton smiling down at you. You tried to say something, but he placed a metal boot on your face and pressed down until your skull cracked into pieces.

 

Everything went white, and at first you thought you were finally dead until you realized that it was the strange pulsating white of the barrier. You turned around and saw Asgore standing in his armor, red trident in hand and a sorrowful, but determined look on his face. You put both of your hands up, you didn’t need to fight! But he swung at you anyway, ripping his trident across your palms and spattering blood against the white floor. You kept trying to plead with him as he stabbed at you, telling him that you didn’t want to fight, and that you could find another way, but he looked mournfully back and said, “I have too much blood on my hands, and too many people to save too back out now.” He looked like he really didn’t want to kill you, but his sheer size and strength was terrifying, even his half-hearted swipes splashed a grotesque amount of blood onto the floor. Before long you were both covered in it, and it was getting harder to move. Bloody gashes littered your skin underneath rips in your clothes. Your feet weren’t obeying you, and Asgore swung the butt of his trident around to knock you to the floor. You rolled onto your back as he stabbed the ground, trapping your neck in between two prongs of his spear. “Godspeed, little one.” he murmured and he drove the trident into the ground. You screamed as the metal cut into your neck, feeling your head…

 

* * *

 

 

You woke up screaming, tears flowing from your eyes as you choked and grabbed your neck with your hands. There was a flurry of motion around you as you woke up every monster in your living room, everyone feeling disoriented as they tried to find the source of the sound.

 

“Whoa, Frisk what-”

  
  
“Frisk, my child, wh-”

 

“HUMAN, ARE YOU-”

 

“F-F-Frisk, a-are you-”

 

“Little one, what is-”

 

“kiddo, calm down-”

 

“Frisk, darling, it’s-”

 

Your eyes darted around the room, shadows stretching across their faces and making them appear grotesque and evil. You felt your heart beating wildly in your chest and your breathing speed up as you looked at them. The red bows around the room looked like blood, and Asgore’s horns glinted malevolently. Toriel reached for you and you flinched back, another screech ripped from your throat as you felt phantom burns across your arms. Your legs unconsciously pushed you back across the floor until you felt your back hit something cold, and turned to see Mettaton staring at you with concern. You wrenched yourself away, jerkily standing up and wrapping your arms around your ribs, feeling to see if they were still intact as your vision blurred for a few seconds. When it cleared up, Papyrus was reaching for your shoulder in concern, but you yelled out a scratchy “NO” as you spun around and looked wildly around the room for an escape.

 

You were hyperventilating, but you felt as if there wasn’t enough air in this room, you needed air. You saw the front door and your vision tunneled as you sprinted toward it, throwing the door open and running out into the frigid air. You barely heard the chorus of “no”s and “wait”s over the ringing in your ears but you didn’t care. Your entire body was screaming at you to flee, escape, RUN, so you did. Your bare feet pounded down the snow-covered street, burning as the icy wind tore at your clothes and the tears froze on your face. You didn’t know where you were going, but every time you thought you heard a monster getting closer it ripped another scream from your throat and gave you another burst of panicked speed.

 

You had almost made it into the woods when you were enveloped by a soft blue light and lifted off the ground. You tried to kick out blindly, but felt that you could barely move; your arms were folded gently across your chest and your knees tucked under them. Everything in you was screaming that you were about to die, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. You screwed your eyes shut and began to sob, huge heaving breaths that almost choked you as tears ran down your face. You felt yourself being pressed up against a bony chest and let out a high-pitched frightened whine, waiting for the pain to start. Instead, you felt a skeletal hand start running lightly through your hair and low voice murmuring in a soothing tone. Your hazy mind couldn’t make out what they were saying, but after a few minutes you had stopped panicking enough to open your eyes.

 

Sans was holding you to his chest and had zipped you up in his sweater to keep the wind out. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, your feet _stung_ from running down the cold street barefoot and you noticed you were shivering violently. You looked up at Sans and waited for another sharp spike of panic, but then you realized that Sans was one of the only monsters you knew that had never attacked you. He had never once raised a hand against you in the Underground, only scared you in the MTT restaurant. He looked down at you in concern as you sagged against him, but you couldn’t make yourself say anything in response.

 

Not getting any response from you, he walked back to the sidewalk, standing underneath a buzzing streetlight that lit up the falling snow in strange, orange light. You could hear a multitude of footsteps approach, and buried your face in Sans’ neck, pulse thumping in your ears. Suddenly everyone was talking at once, volume building as they all struggled to be heard over each other.

 

“HUMAN! THANK GOODNESS YOU’RE ALRIGHT-”

 

“Hey, punk, why the heck did you go running off like that-”

 

“My child, what caused this? Did something happen-”

 

“Darling, what’s wrong? You know you can always tell us-”

 

“Y-yeah, you know w-we all care about you-”

 

“Little one, why don’t you tell us what’s wrong-”

 

“YES TINY HUMAN, TELL THE GREAT PAPYRUS WHAT-”

 

“Yes, Frisk, please. Tell us what ails you-”

 

“Yeah! Tell me so I can beat up whoever did this-”

 

“F-Frisk-”

 

“FRISK-”

 

“My child-”

 

“Little one-”

 

“Darling-”

 

“Frisk-”

 

“It’s you!” you screamed just to be heard over the unbearable amount of noise they were making. You wrenched yourself out of Sans’ arms and stumbled upright until you were standing in front of them. They all looked stunned to hear you yell, you hardly spoke on a regular basis it was shocking to hear you raise your voice on purpose. But right now you were too shaken to process this and all you wanted was to find a dark room and lie down forever.

 

“Do you even know what happened in the Underground? Do you? I _died._ Over and over, and you guys were the ones that killed me.” You weren’t seeing them as you spoke, looking through them and into the awful memories of the Underground. Suddenly, your eyes snapped up to Toriel; she looked devastated, but something ugly that had been building up in your chest for months now was fighting its way out and you couldn’t stop it. “You _burned_ me when I tried to leave, you didn’t mean to kill me but you did and it hurt and I was _scared_.”

 

You turned to Papyrus, who was now crying openly; you felt a sharp pain in your heart but blurted out before you could stop, “You were one of my first friends, but you still hit me and hit me and kept _hitting me_ until I couldn’t stand up, until I passed out and you _smiled_ the entire time.”

 

Undyne was gripping onto Alphys, looking vaguely ill as you turned to her, “I tried sparing you, running, pleading but you kept _chasing_ me until you couldn’t run anymore. You gave me a shield I could barely lift and screamed at me and your spears _hurt_. Sometimes I wouldn’t even die instantly and-” a small gag forced you to stop talking for a moment, and Mettaton reached out to you but you flinched back.

 

He stood on Alphy’s other side and you saw the horrific guilt on her face, “And _you guys_. Every one of your puzzles _terrified_ me, I thought I was going to die every time and they _weren’t even real_. Mettaton shot me with lasers, set off bombs next to me, _kicked_ me until I was so broken I couldn’t move.”

 

Asgore hung his head like he knew what was coming, and deserved every word. Your voice was down to a hoarse whisper at this point, “I don’t even remember how many times you killed me, how many times I tried to surrender, or how many times you stabbed your trident through my chest, through my _neck_ while apologizing. And I’ve forgiven you,” your breathing hitched and you looked around at all their faces. Everyone had tears on their faces except for Sans, who stood behind you with a blank expression and no lights in his eyes, “I’ve forgiven all of you, I really have, I’m not angry but I just can’t _forget_ even though I really, _really_ want to. I’m so tired all the time, I’m so tired of being scared and I just want to be happy with my family because you guys are the best one I’ve ever had, but- but-”

 

And suddenly your mother’s arms were around you as you sobbed so violently you almost couldn’t breathe. You both dropped to your knees as your legs gave out, and her furry arms surrounded you with warmth as you gripped desperately onto her dress. She was crying too as she rocked you back and forth saying, “I will never, _never_ hurt you again under _any_ circumstances. I love you more than anything in this world and will protect you with my life, with my soul, and I will-” You ignored any lingering traces of alarm at being so close to her, body and mind finally recognizing that Toriel meant safety and love and not pain. You felt lighter than you had in a long time, and reached out one of your arms to your other friends. They all immediately stepped forward, joining the hug and apologizing vehemently for things they didn’t even remember.

 

You felt a small stab of guilt in the middle of the large group hug; technically none of them had actually done any of those things in this timeline, even if you remembered them. But maybe that was part of the problem; no one else knew, you had simply been keeping all this inside for so long the fear built up and crippled you. Now, you felt you were ready to start working past it. You had the support of your family, and all of monster-kind if you needed it, it might all work out after all.

 

A snowflake landed on your nose and you sneezed, startling everyone around you. You looked up sheepishly as they all remembered that you ran out into the snow in nothing but your pajamas.

 

“i think it’s time we get the kid back inside.” Sans said, still too unsettled to make a pun. You nodded at him and gave him a small smile, watching as he visibly relaxed once he saw you were going to be okay. You glanced down at your bare feet and the long walk back to the house, and turned to Asgore, raising your arms in the universal symbol for “up.” He looked surprised, and stooped to carefully scoop you up into his arms, holding you like you were something precious.

 

Papyrus led your strange little procession back to the house as the sun came up over the horizon, making the freshly fallen snow sparkle. The living room was blessedly warm as your friends threw every blanket they could find over you while you sat in front of the couch. Asgore and Toriel made tea and hot chocolate in the kitchen, and the rest of your family did their best to crowd as close to you as possible.

 

Mettaton, radiating heat from his core, squeezed in between you and the couch. Papyrus sat to your right, leaning on Mettaton and putting a bare hand on your shoulder. Sans sat on your left, leaning against your left side and snuggling under one of the blankets. Undyne sat in front of you and reclined until she was lying across one of your legs, and Alphys joined her and took your other leg. Asgore and Toriel returned with drinks for everyone and sat on the couch; everyone was exhausted after your ordeal, but no one was willing to try and go back to sleep. Instead, you all sipped quietly from your mugs for a while, the hot liquid working wonders to restore your energy, and chatted, trying to guess what was in the presents wrapped under the tree.

 

As the sun rose higher, the atmosphere in the house brightened. Papyrus danced around to Christmas music in the living room, anxiously waiting to open his gifts from Santa. Mettaton joined him and soon they were having a hilarious pose-off to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Undyne whipped a sprig of mistletoe out of her pocket and held it over Alphy’s head, so excited that she almost suplexed her girlfriend when she leaned in for a kiss. Papyrus took the mistletoe out of Undyne’s hand was she was… occupied, and pushed his brother into Toriel, holding it above both their heads with a smug, “NYEH HEH HEH.” Toriel laughed and kissed Sans on the nose ridge, flustering him so much he accidentally teleported into the front yard. Papyrus laughed until Sans came back in with a handful of snow and jammed it into his eye sockets. Frisk laughed so hard they had to sit down on the couch next to Asgore, who was crocheting sleeves to keep his potted plants warm.

 

Frisk looked around the room at all the people who loved them, and would never hurt them, and found that they didn’t care what was waiting for them under the tree. No matter what, this was going to be the best Christmas ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Could anyone tell that I live in California and have no idea how snow works? How do you even go outside when it’s less than 50 degrees?


End file.
